Iberia

by James A. Michener

The multiplicity of Llull’s acquirements remains astonishing. He wrote, as a matter of course, of metaphysics, logic, rhetoric, grammar, dogmatics, ethics; these were within the province of every schoolman. But beyond these, he dealt with geometry, astronomy, physics, chemistry, anthropology, as well as law and statecraft, navigation and warfare and horsemanship. He foresaw the problem of thermo-dynamics, the question of the expenditure of heat in the initiation of movement; he discussed the essential properties of the elements; he was acquainted with the property of iron when touched by the magnet to turn to the north; he endeavored to explain the causes of wind, and rain, and ice; he concerned himself with the problems of generation. He foresaw the Tartar invasion before the coming of the Ottomans, and he firmly believed in the existence of a great continent on the other side of the world centuries before Columbus sailed out into the west. He was not a great scientific discoverer or investigator, he had not the exclusively scientific temperament of another great Franciscan of that day, Roger Bacon; but his keen and penetrating intelligence placed him at the head and even in front of the best available knowledge of his time, and we can but wonder that a man who began life as the gay singer of a remote centre of chivalry, and ended it as a martyr to faith, should have possessed so much cold, intellectual acumen, so much quiet energy, to devote to the interpretation of the visible world.

  Ellis’ imposing catalogue fails to touch the two facets of Llull’s career that attracted me to him. I do not mean his perfection of the astrolabe, whereby travelers were able to ascertain where they were on the ocean, nor his writing of two hundred and twenty-eight treatises on almost every important topic of his age, but rather the fact that it was Ramón Llull who intellectually initiated the cult of the Virgin; his philosophical expositions paved the way for the doctrines of Immaculate Conception, Intercession and Assumption. (The theological underpinning was provided by Duns Scotus.) Therefore, since the cult of the Virgin has become the central fact of Spanish theology and perhaps of Spanish thought in general, Llull must be recognized as one of Spain’s prime movers.

  The second reason why I regarded him so highly had to do with other matters. Years before, when I was studying Muslim and Jewish thought in the eastern Mediterranean, I came upon an essay whose title and author I have forgotten, because at the time I was not concerned with the problem it discussed; it was called something like ‘Raymundo Lulio and the Last Crusade’ and was by a Jewish author who took a rather dim view of Llull, because the Franciscan had conceived a scatterbrained idea of converting all Jews and Muslims to Catholicism by means of his rational persuasion alone. It was a brilliant essay, and long after I had read it and apparently forgotten it, the picture of Ramón Llull returned to stand with me at unexpected places. In Cyprus I recalled that Llull had journeyed there in hopes of converting the Tartars, whom he mistakenly believed to have overrun the Holy Land. When I wandered among the barren rocks of Carthage, Llull appeared, and at Tunis he was very much present, for he had gone there to argue with the sultan and to prove deductively the superiority of Christ. In Paris there was Llull; in Rome, where he went so often to plead with the popes for a crusade of the intellect and not of the sword; and in a half dozen other cities of the Mediterranean where he had engaged in disputation with Jews and Muslims, trying to convert them by his logic.

  ‘I see many knights going to the Holy Land beyond the seas,’ he reasoned with the Pope, ‘and thinking that they can acquire it by force of arms; but in the end all are destroyed before they attain that which they think to have. Whence it seems to me that the conquest of the Holy Land ought not to be attempted except in the way in which Jesus Christ and his apostles acquired it in the first place, namely, by love and prayers and the pouring out of treasure and blood.’ He ended all his exhortations with the reminder ‘He who loves not, lives not.’

  It was with these recollections of a man who had become a brother to me that I watched our ship dock at Palma, where Llull had galloped his legendary horse into church to seek an assignation with his reluctant lady. As soon as the gangplank was lowered I set off for the Basilica de San Francisco, whose three-tiered cloister marked by palm trees is one of the choice sights of Mallorca. There I had the good luck to meet the young Franciscan who directed the monastery attached to the basilica, Father Antonio Riutford, who seemed scarcely old enough for such a job. He was a scholar and well versed in the life of Ramón Llull, of whom he said, ‘Fine philosopher. Poor theologian.’ To confirm this judgment he led me to the stained-glass window which showed St. Francis and St. Dominic watching with approval as Ramón Llull in purple robes and Duns Scotus in blue announce their doctrine of the Virgin. ‘Llull for ideas. Scotus for sanctity,’ Father Riutford said. He then took me to a second window overlooking the nave of the church, and here Llull appeared in the brown robes of a Franciscan, preaching to Muslims with more success than he enjoyed in real life; the window is striking in that the unbelievers are not struck dumb by Llull’s eloquence. They listen with dignity to the Doctor Illuminatus and some of them have voluntarily moved into the ranks of his converts.

  Flower seller on Las Ramblas.

  Next Father Riutford showed me a painting which has caused much discussion. It shows Llull twice: first as a bearded old man of eighty preaching on the shores of Africa as an angel brings him a martyr’s crown; second as he dies a miserable death supported by his defenders, who are unable to save him from his Muslim executioners. ‘A very dubious work,’ Father Riutford admitted. ‘Had he died so, he would surely have become a saint. The fact seems to be that he went to Africa, preached to the Muslims, accomplished nothing and sailed back to Mallorca. When his ship was in sight of Palma, he died.’ Through delicacy, perhaps, Father Riutford did not bore me with the unbecoming struggle that enveloped Llull in death. Franciscans insisted that he had died a martyr and must be made a saint; Dominicans laughed at the claim and charged instead that he was a heretic and should be posthumously excommunicated. Through the centuries one pope inclined toward one interpretation, his successor to the other; as a result Ramón Llull has not even yet been proclaimed a saint.

  This Papal ambivalence was duplicated among the citizens of Palma, who could not decide whether Llull was saint or heretic. ‘This nave summarizes the story,’ Father Riutford says. ‘Originally Llull was buried in this chapel over here, but antagonisms between his supporters and his detractors became so vicious, with brawling and the defacing of his grave, that the Franciscans judged it might be wiser to hide his ashes down there, in the ground under the altar. Long after this was done, it was decided that it was a humiliation to a great man, and if he couldn’t stand forth in his own church, where could he? So the hidden urn was dug up and Llull was buried anew in this other chapel back in the apse. It’s a beautiful tomb, but as you might have expected, it’s been left unfinished for these last five hundred years. Those responsible for the church have not yet been able to agree as to what kind of man, Llull was.’

  It was a strange tomb that Llull’s followers erected in the 1450s. Well above the level of the eye rests a stone sarcophagus decorated with the jacent statue of a bearded old man holding a rosary in hands clasped for prayer, but the statue does not occupy a normal position on the lid of the sarcophagus; it is carved on the side facing the viewer. Llull, therefore, does not lie parallel to the floor but sleeps on his elbow and looks as if he might fall off the side at any moment. There were supposed to be two statues flanking his tomb, Philosophy and Theology. Below, so that their heads would have stood at eye level, should have been seven additional statues representing: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric (the trivium) and Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astronomy (the quadrivium). The niches are waiting, set off by Gothic pilasters, and angels stand by with crowns to grace the missing figures, but the statues have not been completed even though sculptors have had five hundred years to do the job.

  ‘Mallorca has never been able to make up its mind,’ Father Riutford said, showing me a crypt which had been dug under the altar i
n 1915, the sixth centenary of Llull’s death, with the idea that his body should be identified with the Host and thus to serve as the focus for a cult. The crypt was prepared, even though many graves occupied by friars buried there over past centuries had to be dug up, but when it was finished the old animosities against Llull prevailed and the move was not permitted.

  Spain as a whole has not been easy in its attitude toward Llull, who seems to have been more a Frenchman than a Spaniard; his orientation was to Paris and not to Toledo, certainly to Rome rather than to Barcelona. One of the scholars at the Madrid tertulia had told me, ‘Llull is a man you can’t trust. You think you have him, and he slips out of your fingers.’ As the man spoke I recalled the poem Llull had written at the age of sixty-five:

  I am old, poor, unappreciated and without assistance from anyone. I have undertaken superior tasks, insofar as my ability would permit. I have journeyed through a great part of the world. Very fine examples have I given of learning, but nevertheless I am little loved and less known.

  (Later, when I returned to the tertulia in Madrid, I asked Martinez Lopez of Texas and Cossío of the Academy their opinion of Llull, and they agreed that he was one of the supreme Spaniards, whose theories have yet to be exhausted.)

  I revere Llull because in his day he saw the interlocking nature of the world and was willing to sacrifice his life to help achieve unity. To him the Mediterranean was infinitely larger than the Atlantic and the Pacific are to me, yet he went forth to all the shores, preaching one message, ‘He who loves not, lives not.’ If the Tartars overran older civilizations, he was ready to talk with the Tartars. If the Muslims held Africa in slavery, he was prepared to walk on foot through Africa and debate with its rulers. If he came upon an island, he said. ‘Let’s build a university.’ If a subject was obscure, he wrote a book about it, explaining its intricacies and relating them to all other known fields. Beaten and expelled from Bugia (today Bougie in Algeria), the Muslim capital on the northern coast of Africa, he blamed no one but himself, reasoning that if his logic had been more persuasive the Muslims would have listened; so after surviving shipwreck on his way to Pisa he retired to perfect his argument, after which he returned to Bugia alone to see the sultan face to face. And in spite of the defeats he met, he remained a poet to the end.

  His reputation in the Church has been much damaged by one of those perplexing historical accidents that one can neither explain nor correct. In the eighteenth century a fable circulated to the effect that Ramón Llull, the world’s master alchemist, had succeeded in compounding an alkahest that would speed the transmutation of lead to gold. For prudent reasons he had refrained from committing his formula to writing, but if one studied his numerous books on alchemy one could deduce the formula and with it make gold. Understandably, there was a run on Llull’s alchemical works and he became famous throughout Europe. What were the names of his books on the subject? He wrote none. Close study of his major work proves that he held alchemy in contempt; certainly he ridiculed the idea of transmuting metals and frequently spoke poorly of those who tried. He was, in effect, his age’s principal foe of alchemy; but because he was known to have written on chemistry, and partly, I suppose, because pictures of him showed the long beard of the typical Faustian alchemist, he became the symbol of the movement and it would have been fruitless to deny that he was its leader.

  As for the alchemy books attributed to Llull, which do exist and in extraordinary number, they were all forgeries, done mostly in Germany and very late. For a book on alchemy to sell, it almost had to be signed by Raymundo Lulio, and so they proliferated. Even today the few persons who have heard of Ramón Llull are apt to remember him only as Europe’s chief alchemist. For a man who founded his intellectual life on rationalism, it is a bitter trick.

  I was surprised in Mallorca to find no monument to Llull, as I had been surprised in Córdoba to find none to Averroës, but at lunch I discovered why. A friend in Barcelona had asked a young scholar in Palma to supervise my lunch, and when we were seated I asked him why Llull had been ignored, and he said, ‘But he wasn’t. In 1915 plans were laid to erect a statue on the waterfront. The site was selected and the base was built. But …’

  ‘There were objections?’

  ‘Yes. I’m a great admirer of Llull’s. He was probably the best man these islands ever produced, but there are many who consider him a heretic. So the monument was not permitted.’

  It so happened that at a nearby table a medical doctor was having his lunch, and when he heard that I was from the United States he introduced himself, Dr. Antonio Bauza Roca from the Mallorcan city of Petra. ‘We make many shoes there for shipment to your country, but we are famous for something quite different.’ He was a peppery little man with a rim of dark hair about his bald head and a set of very dark eyebrows; he had many interests and spoke with fluency on economics, politics, shipping and literature, but when he handed me his card it was as El Presidente de la Asociación de los Amigos de Fray Junípero Serra. ‘He was born in Petra,’ Dr. Bauza said proudly, ‘but it was in California that he found his immortality. He’s buried in Carmel and we’ve been told he’s practically the patron saint of California.’

  Then, with his eyes dancing beneath their large brows, he explained why he had wanted to speak with me. ‘In 1969 we celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of Fray Junípero’s arrival at San Diego. Festivities here and bigger ones in California. At that time our great project will come to fulfilment … the one we’ve been working on so hard.’

  I asked what it was, and he said, ‘The rich people of California consider it shameful that in Mallorca there is no fine statue to Fray Junípero, who is the greatest man ever to come from these islands. So they’re collecting money and we’re going to build a tall statue … right over there. Fray Junípero Serra, the patron of Mallorca, rising like a giant and looking across the sea toward California, the land he went to convert.’

  I noticed that my luncheon partner did not respond to this news but sat with his hands clenched. When Dr. Bauza, having invited my wife and me to attend the celebrations enshrining Fray Junípero, departed, he cursed and said, ‘Can you guess the spot they’ve chosen for their monument? The very one where the statue to Ramón Llull was to have been built. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used the same base. And what did Junípero Serra ever do? He stumbled his way into California. Oh my God!’

  Sadness possessed my friend as he reflected on the world’s unjustness: ‘A man like Ramón Llull can have the foremost mind of his age. Write more than two hundred books that kept intelligence alive. Identify the true nature of the Virgin. He can work to unite the known world, and it all comes to nothing. Even his own Church rejects him … his tomb is left unfinished. And all because he worked in the field of the intellect. But let an ignorant friar happen to wander across land where oil is to be discovered … and where American millionaires are to flourish. And all the money you would need is made available for erecting a statue to that friar.’

  He turned to me in mock bitterness and said, ‘You norteamericanos are ruining Spain.’ Then like a conspirator he drew close and whispered, ‘But if you do put up that statue to Junípero Serra … on the site reserved for Ramón Llull. Well, don’t be surprised if some dark night the damned thing’s dynamited.’

  I thought it wisest not to tip my hand at this early stage, but if his plot goes forward, I plan to be in on it.

  XI

  THE BULLS

  From that first Sunday in Valencia when I watched Lalanda, Ortega and El Estudiante fight six bulls I have been a devotee of the bullring. Over a period of thirty-five seasons I have seen all the great matadors in Spain and Mexico save Pepe Luis Vazquez the Spaniard, although strangely enough I was a good friend of the Mexican matador of that name. I have traveled with bullfighters in both countries, have read almost everything in print in both Spanish and English, plus many fine books in French, and instead of losing interest as the years passed, I have found my appetite for this
art increasing.

  I suppose I have seen over 250 fights with full matadors, which is a far cry from the 750 which a professional bull-follower like Kenneth Vanderford has seen, or the amazing 114 which the American girl Virginia Smith saw in one year by dint of driving her Renault like mad back and forth across Spain during the bullfight season. I have long since stopped making apologies for my interest in the bulls, but I do believe that the following observations by a Spaniard who had lived in America will prove relevant.

  American: How can a civilized man like you tolerate bullfighting?

  Spaniard: A fair question and one deserving a serious answer. I suggest that you think of bullfighting in Spain as you would boxing in America.

  American: Exactly the point I wanted to make. All decent Americans are opposed to boxing. Each time after a boxer is killed in the ring, there is an outcry from our responsible press, questions are asked in Congress and movements are launched to end this bloody business.

  Spaniard: Rightly so, because boxing is much more brutal than bullfighting. And of course far more men are killed in the boxing ring than in the bullring. Statistically boxing is more dangerous. Morally it’s more debilitating.

  American: I agree. And that’s why we’re all against it. Why aren’t you Spaniards against bullfighting?

  Spaniard: To a certain extent we are. Many decent Spaniards oppose bullfighting on precisely the grounds that decent Americans oppose boxing. But on the other hand, there are decent Spaniards who rather like bullfighting and feel that the brutality is a small price to pay for so much beauty.

  American: That’s what we Americans can’t understand. How can anyone argue that fleeting beauty, fine as it is, justifies a thing like bullfighting?

  Spaniard: To understand this I invite you to compare bullfighting not with a rejected American sport like boxing but with an accepted one like football.